


Alphabet Soup

by Jestana



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-11-29 23:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11451201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jestana/pseuds/Jestana
Summary: A few short ficlets along the lines of 'A is for Apple'.





	1. B is for Blonde

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the **Summer Alphabet Fic Challenge** held by a fan website that is no longer running.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a blonde and a woman has its uses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor spoilers for _Rampage_.

Special Agent Megan Reeves was not your typical air headed blonde or damsel in distress. With a bachelor's degree in behavioral science and a specialization in criminal psychology, she was far from dumb. Thanks to her FBI training and interest in various martial arts disciplines, particularly krav maga, she could hold her own against any would-be assaulter and probably even arrest him for it, too.

That did not mean, however, that she didn't capitalize on that perception. She'd hated to do that when she was younger, but she realized, as she grew older that it was a valuable smokescreen. Suspects would underestimate her and were surprised when she proved to be a formidable opponent. It was also an asset when someone they were trying to help refused to talk to a man. Some people just found it easier to talk to a woman than a man.

For the most part, though, she preferred to think of herself as an FBI agent. She did her job and helped solve cases using her specialty. She would help figure out what sort of criminal they were pursuing and sometimes be a counselor for people who'd lost loved ones for one reason or another. That was probably the most painful part of her job. She'd watched many people grieving for their loved ones and it never got easier.

She normally dealt with the stress by going to the gym and working it off, followed by a stiff drink, and then bed. Now, though, she sought out Larry's company. He never asked questions, waiting for her to speak, and was an undemanding presence that she found very comforting and soothing. More than once, she fell asleep in a chair and woke up on the couch with a blanket over her. Sometimes, being the damsel in distress was nice.


	2. F is for Fleinhardt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megan calls Larry while they're waiting to go back into the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major spoiler for _Rampage_.

Larry was busy grading assignments in his office when the phone rang. After searching for a few moments, he found the phone under the very stack of assignments he was grading. "Professor Larry Fleinhardt speaking."

"Larry? It's Megan. How are you?" He couldn't help smiling when he heard Megan's voice.

He sat back in his chair as he returned her greeting and answered her question. "Hello, Megan. I'm fine."

"That's good. Listen, something happened at the offices this morning and--"

He abruptly sat up at those words, his forehead creasing with worry as he interrupted her. "Are you all right?"

"What?" She sounded puzzled and he could almost see her frowning.

He grimaced, resting his cheek in his hand. "I asked if you're all right."

"Oh, I'm fine." Her voice was reassuring as she answered his question.

Despite this, he wasn't quite reassured. "You're sure?"

"Really, I am." He wished he could see her through the phone somehow and be sure that she was telling him the truth.

For that reason, he persisted with his questioning. "You weren't hurt, were you?"

"No, no, I wasn't hurt. A few others have bullet wounds and McCall's dead." The last was said with regret.

He could understand the regret. Even though he was dead and would never prey on innocent girls again, he would never actually _pay_ for the crimes he'd committed. "Oh, that's not good. Do you know who..."

"We don't know who killed him yet," she answered the question he hadn't quite been able to finish. "Charlie's pretty shaken up."

He smiled wryly, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. "I'm not surprised to hear that. I know _I_ would be shaken up, were I in his shoes, which I'm not."

"He's on his way back to the campus. There's no reason for him to stay now that McCall's dead," she said, taking advantage of the pause in his rambling to tell him that.

He nodded, a relieved smile appearing. "Yes, of course."

"Just, keep an eye on him, will you?" she asked softly, worry and concern in her voice now. "Charlie's never had to deal with something like this before."

He smiled sadly over the truth of her words. "Of course I will. You didn't even need to ask. I'll go and meet him in the parking lot." He rose to his feet, suiting action to words.

"Great, thanks." He could hear the relief in her voice.

He frowned, unable to help asking his next question. "Are you sure you're all right?"

" _Yes_ , I'm fine." He wasn't quite sure, but it sounded like her voice was a mix of fondness and exasperation.

Even though he knew she would anyway, he had to voice his next thought. "Take good care of yourself, please."

"All right." This time he was sure her voice was indulgent.

He stifled a sigh, aware that it was the most he could do for the moment. "Good-bye, Megan."

"Bye, Larry." He heard the tell-tale click that indicated she'd hung up.

Slowly, he placed his phone in the cradle and stared at for several moments. Softly, he murmured, "I'll see you later."

With that, he left his office to meet Charlie in the parking lot as he'd promised Megan he would.


	3. X is for Xerox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xerox machines can be hazardous if you're an absent-minded professor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor spoiler for _Dark Matter_.

Larry Fleinhardt loved to teach, to pass on at least a portion of the knowledge he'd gathered over the years with his students. What he didn't like, however, was testing students and grading their assignments. Coming up with tests was always a painful process, not to mention Xeroxing them and putting together the packets afterwards. Luckily, today's Xerox machines could collate and staple the packets together with the only effort required limited to pushing a couple buttons on the machine in question.

Unfortunately, it could prove hazardous for an absent-minded professor unless he had someone else do the Xeroxing _for_ him. Larry usually remembered to have one of his TA's do his Xeroxing for him, but none of them were available when it absolutely needed to be done, so he gathered up the packet that would be Xeroxed and took it to the teacher's lounge himself. After some muttering and mumbling to himself and looking in the user's manual, he figured out where to put the packet and which buttons to push.

He watched with satisfaction as the machine gobbled up the packet of papers and began spitting out stapled copies of it. Picking up one of the packets, he flipped through it, pleased with the fact that he got the machine to work on the first try this time. He froze when saw the last page in the packet. It was a thank you note Megan had sent him after their dinner together at the Ethiopian restaurant. He liked to keep it on his desk so he could look at it and smell her perfume on the stationary. It must have stuck to the bottom of the packet when he picked it up and been sucked in with the rest of it.

Quickly tearing it off, he began to do the same for the other packets as the Xerox machine spit them out, his face turning red as he tossed copy after copy of the note into the trashcan. Finally, the machine finished and Larry pulled the original copies out of the tray. When he turned it over, there was the note, still smelling faintly of her perfume. Folding it up, he tucked it into his pocket and left the teacher's lounge for his next class, stopping in his office long enough to pick up his notes for his eleven-dimension super-gravity theory that he would work on while his students took the test.

* * *

He didn't think anything of it when one of the girls at the back of the room giggled. He simply reminded her that they were in the middle of a test. She looked apologetic, a faint tint of pink in her cheeks, "Sorry, Professor."

Smiling reassuringly, he went back to his notes, double-checking his equations and hoping that Charlie would have time later in the week to triple- and quadruple-check them. Two more giggles from the back of the classroom brought a frown to his face. "If you find time to giggle, may I assume that it means you have finished the test?"

The students quickly bent over their papers once more, scribbling down their answers. There were no more giggles for the rest of the test, student after student coming forward to hand him their completed tests. As the students who'd been seated in the back slipped out, giggles wafted back to him before the door closed behind them. Wondering what could be so funny, he noticed that someone had left a paper on the floor. After the last student had gone, he retrieved the paper and felt the blood drain from his face. It was a copy of Megan's note. He hadn't removed it from the first few copies the Xerox machine had spit out.

Rubbing his face ruefully, he returned to the desk and gathered up his things. There was nothing he could do about it now. The students who'd had those packets had likely told the others by this time and the rumors would spread from there. As he'd often heard: _Least said, soonest mended._ He would simply wait out the storm of rumors and hope it wouldn't last too long. Of course, he could always start a rumor about Charlie having a girlfriend...


	4. I is for Interoffice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megan catches Don, David, and Colby with an interesting note...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Direct sequel to the previous chapter.

Special Agent Megan Reeves was not in a good mood that morning. It turned out that the blouse she'd planned on wearing to work that morning had a rather large hole in it, so she'd had to put together another outfit, so she hadn't had time to put together her usual mug of coffee or even stop at the mini-mart to buy a latte to go. Between the lack of coffee and the fact that she was craving chocolate due to the time of the month, her witty comebacks had more bite to them than they usually did.

For that reason, the men left Megan alone, even after she'd absorbed some caffeine and chocolate into her system and was more reasonable. That was fine with her because she wasn't sure she'd be much nicer than she had been earlier. Rather than fret about it, she busied herself looking up information for their current case. She became so absorbed in her work that she barely noticed when Don returned from a trip to CalSci to speak with his brother, vaguely waving a hand in greeting, scanning the information on her computer screen intently.

The muffled chuckles and sniggers didn't penetrate her consciousness immediately. Eventually, however, they became so persistent that she blinked and glanced over to where Don, David, and Colby were huddled together, the latter two reading a paper over Don's shoulders. Her curiosity piqued, Megan glanced at her coffee cup and realized that she needed a refill anyway. Unfolding her long legs, she stood up and strolled over to the men. "What're you reading, Gentlemen?"

"Oh! Megan!" All three of them started at the sound of her voice, Don hastily hiding the paper behind his back. "I thought you were doing some research for the Henderson case."

"I decided to take a coffee break," she explained with a bemused smile, holding up her empty cup. She nodded at the paper behind Don's back. "What do you have there?"

"Nothing of interest," he replied, the sounds coming from behind his back indicating that he'd crumpled up the paper. "To you, anyway."

She raised an eyebrow at that, her curiosity well and truly piqued now. "Well, shouldn't I be the one to decide that?"

"I, uh," Don faltered, glancing around for support from David and Colby, but the two had snuck away while he was talking with Megan. "Hey!"

She'd snatched the paper out of his grasp while he was distracted and carefully smoothed it out, her eyes widening when she saw what it was. She looked up at him, her emotions carefully hidden by a neutral mask. "Where did you get this?"

"There were copies plastered all over CalSci," he explained, shrugging his shoulders helplessly and nodded to the wrinkled paper in her hand. "I found that one taped to Larry's door."

She nodded, looking back down at the paper in her hand. It was a copy of the note she'd written to Larry months ago, thanking him for _dinner and a wonderful time last night._ The evening in question had been the first time they'd gone out. She was surprised that he would still have the original note after all this time. "I wonder how they got all over the school..."

"I don't know, but Charlie or Larry might," Don suggested, apparently relieved that she wasn't mad at him.

She nodded, biting her lip for a moment before walking over to the shredder and feeding the copied note into it. "Aw, man!"

"Sorry to disappoint, Granger," she commented over her shoulder, feeding the note into the shredder again, so all that was left of it were tiny squares of paper. "If I catch you with another one, it'll go the same route."

Once she finished that particular task, she returned to her desk and pulled her purse out of the desk drawer. "Hey, where're you going?"

"It's almost twelve. I have a lunch d--meeting," she answered, rummaging through her purse for her car keys. "I'll see you in about an hour."

He didn't say anything until she'd slung her purse over her shoulder and turned to face him. "Say 'hi' to Larry for me, all right?"

"Later, Don." Without acknowledging his words, she headed to the elevator. _I hope Larry's up to answering a few questions..._


	5. Q is for Quiz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Larry awaits Megan's arrival for their lunch d--meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Direct sequel to the previous two chapters.

Professor Larry Fleinhardt's day had been fine until he arrived at CalSci's campus and found that several mischievous students had decided to redecorate the school with copies of a thank you note Megan had sent him several months ago. They'd managed to get a copy of the original note thanks to Larry's unfamiliarity with the Xerox machine in the teacher's lounge. The minute Larry saw the notes plastered all over the school; his day had started to go downhill. Charlie and Amita had each found the situation hilarious and teased him about it, especially Charlie. Larry had been tempted to fabricate a love note for Charlie and slip that to one of the math students, but had immediately rejected the idea. When Don came by to talk to Charlie about a case, he'd grabbed a copy of the note and taken it with him, presumably to share with David and Colby. That meant that Megan would most likely find out and want to know how the note in question had been copied in the first place. For the first time, he found himself dreading a lunch date with Megan.

He refused to take the coward's way out and cancel the date altogether. It would be a disservice to her when she faced much more dangerous situations in the course of her work for the FBI. Which is why he was currently slouched in his chair behind his desk, fidgeting with the Rubik's cube Charlie had left on said desk when he and Amita had been by earlier to tease him about CalSci's new look. He watched the minute hand of the clock over the door approach the large three, bringing the time of his lunch date with Megan one minute, one second closer. He was so involved in watching the clock that he forgot to watch the door and didn't immediately register the fact that Megan had arrived a full ten minutes early and was now waiting patiently in front of his desk, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. "Megan!" He sat up, startled, and dropped the Rubik's cube. "I wasn't expecting you so soon."

"I gathered as much," she answered dryly as he dove under his desk to retrieve the fallen Rubik's cube. He misjudged the location of the desk and bumped his head on it as he attempted to emerge with as much grace as he could muster. "Are you all right, Larry?"

"Yes, I'm fine," he replied, glancing up at her as he managed to resume his seat, rubbing the back of his head ruefully. "Just bumped my head, that's all."

She moved around the desk and gently brushed his hands away from his head, probing it with her fingers, checking for a bump. "We can't have that now, can we?"

"I suppose not," he agreed, closing his eyes and leaning his head back into her touch.

After a few moments, she dropped her hands. "You either have a hard head or didn't hit the desk as hard as I thought."

He laughed, turning his chair so he could face her. "Some people would say the former."

"Probably," she agreed with a smile. "Shall we go to lunch now?"

He nodded, rising from his seat, "That sounds like an excellent idea."

"Very well." She slipped her arm through his and they left his office together.

When they emerged from the building itself, a silent sigh of relief escaped him. Most of the copies of his note to Megan had either blown away or been taken down. "Thank God."

"What was that, Larry?" she asked, glancing down at him.

He shook his head, casually urging her towards the parking lot. "Nothing, Megan."

"Oh, I meant to ask you: how did Don end up with a copy of a note _I_ wrote you?" she queried as they strolled along the sidewalk.

He stifled a groan of dismay. She brought it up anyway! "I suppose it's because someone decided that copies of that note would make a fine decoration for the school."

"How did this [i]someone[/i] end up with the note in the first place?" She waited patiently as he unlocked the passenger door to his car--not the Model A, mind you. He preferred to leave that at home in the garage and drive it only on special occasions.

He bit his lip, feeling a blush warm his cheeks. Deciding honesty would be the best policy, he explained about the incident with the Xerox machine, ending with, "So, you see, it happened by accident, Megan."

"I believe you, Larry." She smiled warmly, leaning down to kiss his cheek. "Just try not to let it happen again, okay?"

"Okay." He smiled as she climbed into the car, relieved that she'd believed him. Closing the door behind her, he moved around the car to the driver's side and climbed behind the wheel to take her out to lunch.

**Author's Note:**

> That's all of the chapters for this particular challenge. Thanks for all the kudos and comments!


End file.
